About Trolldom
Scndinavian Folkmagic & Spiritual practices
In modern Scandinavia, “Trolldom” simply means “magic”. Although the word “magic” did not enter our language until much later (1400´s). Trolldom has nothing to do with the associated stage acts of illusionists of the late 1700´s and 1800´s.
The term "Trolldom" have been used as legal term throughout the centuries. From the oldest 13th century church laws to 17th century laws defining Trolldom as Pacts with the devil and Förgörelse – cursing. For this reason, Trolldom has been associated with harmful practices and Black magic up until the 21 century and the word might stirr fear in the older generations of the non-practicing community.
The practices themselves are very similar to other spiritual traditions in which variations and differences are merely an influence of specific needs related to geographic location. In this way Trolldom is no different than other various local European cuisines.
Over the centuries there have been many terms for the art of magic, but none of these has withstood time like the term Trolldom.
The term "Trolldom".
The term trolldom can be translated to “the art of the trolls” and the term has been around for at least 2500 years. Its root is believed to be the proto-germanic noun “truzla”, meaning “a supernatural being”, most likely related to the Jotuns (Giants) of old mythology.
Today, like it has been for millennia’s, the term occurs as a prefix; troll-, indicating that an object is not exactly as it seems and that it is related to what we today would term “supernatural”.
The term exists in many European languages:
Old High German: *trollo
Middle High German: *trolle (attested early 15th c.)
German: Troll, Trull, Trulle, Droll (dialectal; modern word chiefly from Norse)
⇒ German: Trulla
Old Norse: troll, trǫll
Icelandic: tröll
Faroese: trøll
Norwegian Nynorsk: troll; (dialectal) trøll
Norwegian Bokmål: troll
Old Swedish: trol, trul
Swedish: troll
→ French: troll, trollon
Scanian: trøll
Danish: trold
→ German: Troll (influenced by dialectal word above)
→ English: troll; trollop
→ Middle Low German: *drolle
Low German: droll
→ German: Droll
→ Middle Dutch: drolle, drol
Dutch: drol
→ Old French: drolle, draule
Middle French: drolle
French: drôle
→ English: droll
→ Dutch: trol; troel
(Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/truzl%C4%85).
The practice of Trolldom.
In the past 700 years or so, most people writing about Trolldom have been non-practitioners.
This means that people having no experience in the practices themselves and barely any understanding of what’s going on, have held the public narrative. This in turn has led to misunderstandings and a view of the practices as odd, strange and deceptive at best, and rightfully condemnable and punishable at worst. It has also led to great confusions amongst those approaching the art and the practices it contains.
The Trolldom practices include things like casting spells, summoning and talking to spirits, spirit travel and many other related phenomena. But this is not viewed as supernatural within the practice. In fact, it is the opposite. Trolldom practitioners go to great lengths to explore and befriend Nature.
Trolldom practitioners do not look for abilities outside of Nature or attempt to become something beyond Nature. Instead, we explore what is already available in and around us to discover and learn, to promote growth in wisdom and creative capacity.
Trolldom practitioners do not operate within the paradigm of Supernatural vs Natural or a mechanical world view from which we – the person experiencing life - are separate. Nor do we operate solely from the story of something, but from the actual perceptible content and terrain. This means that we do not put as much emphasis on terms and labels, as a modern western world view, but instead focus on the actual experiences and their content of life force, knowledge/wisdom and how we can and do use these experiences.
Much of the personal practice of Trolldom is secret. The secrecy is not for its own sake or for the purposes of maintaining a pecking order or judgmental stories of others. Instead, we recognize that creating in the natural world is a delicate process and speaking has an influence on this, that should be moderated wisely.